David Mayhew's Congress: The Electoral Connection

"Congress: The Electoral Connection"
In Congress: The Electoral Connection, David Mayhew looks into the activities that members of the United States Congress engage in, particularly those activities that are related to re-election. In his analysis, Mayhew identifies three basic activities that are pervasive throughout the United States Congress, those being advertising, credit claiming, and position taking. These three activities, altogether, are taken into high consideration by a politician that is seeking to be re-elected. When it comes to examining the behaviors of politicians running for re-election, Mayhew’s analysis is plausible, since his observations can be applied across the political spectrum any period of time.
The first activity that many members of the United States Congress engage in is advertising. Mayhew defines advertising as “any effort to disseminate one’s name among constituents in such a fashion as to create a favorable image but in messages having little or no issue content” (Mayhew, 1974). In advertising, the ultimate goal for a member of the United States Congress is to create an identity among constituencies in order to become more widely recognized. Among other things that a member of the United States Congress can advertise are personal qualities, according to Mayhew. These personal qualities may involve a politician’s “experience, knowledge,
Politicians that make a concerted effort in employing the tactic of advertising will not only become popular amongst their constituencies, but have an upper hand